7 Tricks for Writing Great Texts

Oct 1, 2015

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These seven tips will help your texts to become unique and unmatched.

One of the strongest and most common misconceptions about creative writing is that many perceive it as something granted by heaven and something that cannot be learned. This myth has been successfully maintained by the creators themselves, as it flatters their self-esteem and gives an aura of uniqueness.

In fact, this is not so. Success in any activity implies 90 percent of work and perseverance, and only the remaining 10 percent depend on talent. Anyone with the desire and zeal can learn how to write quite decent texts (if not brilliant ones) that will grab the reader from the very first word and keep him/her interested till the final point. This is especially true, if you use the practical advice that we want to share with you in this article.

1. Grab the reader’s attention with the first sentence

This is one of the most important and at the same time most difficult tasks. The first sentence of your text must resemble a well-sharpened hook that will help you tug the reader’s attention. Developing the fishing analogy, you can decorate this hook with colorful bait. However, it is important not to go too far for the reader not to feel cheated closer to the middle of the article.

Here are some good examples for the beginning of the text:

Ask a provocative question – Do you know what is common between a blog and fast food?

Use a quote – Ernest Hemingway once said “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.”

Statistics – According to a study, 99% of bloggers experience a writer’s block from time to time! A story – I felt a great physicist a few days ago. An apple landed on my head!

2. Assess each of your sentences

The question here is not about spelling. You can write with a lot of mistakes, but produce great texts that will make the readers laugh and cry. Or vice versa. You can rely on a competent editor’s help in this case.

The main task is to hold the reader’s attention. Today, the Internet offers many sources of information, and the transition between them is so light that the slightest hitch in your narrative dynamics will force people to choose other sites.

So try to give something valuable to your readers with every single word. The best way to check this is to let a stranger read your text. Once you see that his/her eyes begin to wander, unable to focus, it is a sure sign that the text should be improved.

3. Be brief. Even briefer

The tendency to use long sophisticated sentences remained somewhere in the 19th century, when the time was unhurried and the people were more thoughtful. Today, the pace is compressed to the limit, and people do not have enough time for multi-narrative stories. A good way to check the text is to read it aloud. If you cannot pronounce a sentence in one breath, it may need to be reconsidered or split into several simple ones.

4. Keep it simple

We are sometimes tempted to produce something clever!

Suppress this desire in the bud and never load the reader with an excessive number of scientific or professional terms as well as slang words. No one will check the meaning of incomprehensible words. The readers will just leave the page.

5. Play with analogies

A blog is like a date. You can make a good impression during your first date, but then you will have to prove again and again that you are worthy of attention. The reader is your lover, remember that.

6. Make your text unique (even if the idea is trivial)

Let’s be honest: it is incredibly difficult to come up with something completely new today. If you google every brilliant idea that you have, you will get tens and hundreds of proofs that someone has already written about it. What on earth should you do then?

Look for a different prospect.

If the Internet is replete with articles about the benefits of freelancing, then write an article, telling who and for what reasons should abandon this activity. Or describe the history of an employee who has made his/her choice in favor of one direction or another.

7. Finish the text effectively

After you give the bait in the introduction and develop the theme in the main part, it’s time to conclude. Writing a conclusion is sometimes no less complicated than writing a beginning. The conclusion normally restates the main theme of your writing in a compressed form. But unfortunately, it can be very boring and plain.

It is much more interesting to follow the detective genre masters, who use suspense and give a clue in the last sentence. Add some dynamics to your conclusion with an unexpected question, a controversial inference, an original interpretation of the meaning of the article. Do everything possible for the reader not to stay indifferent and passive.

This set of tips is sure to help you write great texts. It means that they will really be noticeable. Of course, this list is not complete, and each writer has his/her own secrets to share.